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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Edwards violated the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971, the
government alleges, by encouraging two wealthy supporters to fork
over more than $900,000 that was used to cover up his affair with a
campaign aide who bore him a child.

The charge is, in essence, that Edwards violated the Seventh
Commandment...It is dressed up, however, in the language of one of
those many federal criminal statutes that are vague enough to cover
a vast swath of human conduct

Leftist
criticisms
of libertarianism have surged lately, a phenomenon
warranting explanation.
We libertarians could justifiably find it all quite
confusing. For
decades we have thought our battle a largely losing one,
at least
in the short term. We are a tiny, relatively powerless
minority.
The state has raged on, expanding in virtually every
direction,
for my entire lifetime and that of my parents’. Yet nearly
every
week our beloved philosophy of non-aggression is subject
to some
progressive’s relatively widely read hatchet job. On the
surface,
it appears at least as misdirected as the rightwing
hysteria about
Marxists during the Cold War. But at least Marxism was the
supposed
tenet of the Soviet Union, a regime with thousands of
nukes ready
to launch. Why all this concern about little ol’ us?

We could go
through all these critiques line by line and expose the
many factual
errors and gross misinterpretations, whether disingenuous
or unintentional.
But it might be more worthwhile to ask, Why all this focus
on the
supposed demonic threat of libertarianism in the first
place?

It was not
too long ago that the Slate’s Jacob
Weisberg declared the end of libertarianism. Time of
death?
The financial collapse, which proved our "ideology makes
no
sense." Not three years later, the same web publication is
exposing "the
liberty
scam": "With libertarianism everywhere, it's hard
to remember that as recently as the 1970s, it was nowhere
to be
found."

Outfitted with a 1500cc engine, a
watertight cockpit and six
dolphin-like fins, the Innespace Seabreacher redefines personal
watercraft. The 17-foot vessel can reach 50 mph on flat water, cruise
beneath the surface, and launch 18 feet into the air. It’s also got an
iPod-compatible sound system and a digital periscope. Summer may never
be the same.Check out this video of the Seabreacher X
in action:

Tail Fin
The Seabreacher’s top rear fin
acts like a car spoiler. When the
craft is underwater, aiming its water jet toward the tail fin produces
drag that pushes the craft’s rear downward and the nose upward,
launching the vessel out of the water.

Water Jet
A single jet controls propulsion
and steering. Drivers aim it with
two foot pedals in the cockpit. Pointing the stream left or right
initiates a turn; directing it down pops the tail up and aims the
craft’s nose down for a dive.Read Full Story

It is the skyrocketing $14.3 trillion national debt.
It is why in
poll after poll
a majority of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling without
significant spending cuts attached. They understand intuitively that
once a nation’s debt gets so large that it couldn’t possibly be paid
back if it had to be, that nation is effectively bankrupt.

That is the tipping point where default and restructuring of the debt
becomes the only viable option, the only path to salvation. Sadly,
the U.S. is rapidly approaching this position.

Could the debt ever be paid?

Currently, the U.S. is paying about 3 percent interest on the $14.3
trillion debt, or $430 billion of gross interest payments every year.
If we had to repay everything over the next 30 years, principal and
interest owed would amount to $908 billion out of revenue every year.
That’s 41.7 percent of this year’s $2.174 trillion projected tax
collections.

Is that affordable? Would repayment even be possible today? Perhaps
just barely. The benchmark total debt service ratio for mortgage
lenders is 40 percent. Anything above that, and a prospective borrower
would not qualify for a loan. So even today, Uncle Sam would not
qualify for a home mortgage.

What is clear is that by this analysis, over time repayment becomes
increasingly improbable, if not impossible. By the government’s own
numbers, the debt service ratio will continue to rise this decade. Even
under the rosiest scenario, America will be broke within the next 10
years.

By 2021, when the debt rises to $26.346 trillion according to the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB), that office projects interest
rates will have returned to their historical norm of 5 percent. Then
annual gross interest payments will be $1.317 trillion. If we attempted
to begin repayment then, principal and interest owed would amount to
$2.195 trillion, or 45.5 percent of the projected $4.820
trillion in tax receipts projected for that year.

What struck me as illegitimate, however, was the attempt by Committee
Chairman Bingaman to spout the party line in his opening remarks and
try to tie in the occurrence of wildfires with climate change and global
warming.

There he made specific reference to a recently published document by
the National Academy of Sciences entitled, “America’s
Climate Choices” as evidence that global warming is affecting
wildfire frequency and severity.

As it was specifically mentioned in the hearing, the report is worth
taking a look at because it
is a blueprint for Big Government intervention to head off the supposed
dire consequences of Global Warming: “The significant risks that
climate change poses to human society and the environment provide a
strong motivation to move ahead with substantial response efforts.
Current efforts of local, state, and private sector actors are
important, but not likely to yield progress comparable to what could be
achieved with the addition of strong federal policies…”

And yes, the report does have some things to say about forest fires.
As an impact of global climate change it claims that, “The frequency
of large wildfires and the length of the fire season have increased
substantially in both the western United States and Alaska.”
Get full story here.

By Rick Manning As
originally published at The Daily Caller.
Last week I previewed the new documentary that chronicles how Sarah
Palin became the person that the left and political insiders from both
parties most hate and fear.

The documentary, defiantly titled “The Undefeated,” is striking in a
number of respects.

It reminds viewers of the almost overwhelming level of vitriol,
derision and hate directed at someone who is dismissed as lacking in
intellect and ability. There can be no doubt that if anyone on the right
engaged in a similar array of death threats, attacks on a politician’s
children and coordinated, acid-tongued message-points against a
liberal public figure, the U.S. attorney general’s hate crimes unit
would be dispatched and MSNBC, CNN and The Huffington Post would be
inflamed with indignation.
But the hate directed at Governor Palin is only a backdrop that
reveals her inner toughness, determination and courage against seemingly
insurmountable odds.

In Alaska, Palin unseated an entrenched mayor in Wasilla, and then
went on to uproot a culture of corruption in Juneau that engulfed the
Republican governor and other state officials.

Sarah Palin, the woman who made “drill, baby, drill” a catch-phrase,
fought the oil companies to force them to drill the oil and natural gas
on the public lands that they leased from the state. Palin also put in
place the framework for a natural gas pipeline that will deliver this
clean, abundant fuel to the lower 48 states for generations. Quite a
record of success for someone who is satirized as being nothing more
than a bubble-headed bimbo.
Get full story here.

First,
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo achieved one of his most important goals when
the New York Legislature mustered the votes needed to approve a same-sex
marriage bill, which he promptly signed into law. Less than seven days later,
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie scored a major victory of his own when the
New Jersey Legislature passed a landmark measure reforming the state’s public pension
and benefit system, which he signed promptly into law.

Cuomo
and Christie are different governors from different states and different
parties, and the goals they achieved this past week addressed vastly different
issues. Still, there are a few similarities in the circumstances surrounding
each governor’s success.

Both
bills passed after hard-fought battles; both issues had been priorities for the
two governors, and previous attempts to legalize same sex marriage in New York
and to significantly reform public pensions and benefits in New Jersey had
failed.

As
with any major initiative, several factors were responsible for the successes
Cuomo and Christie achieved last week. These include their strong personalities,
changing attitudes on social issues, and the current fiscal crunch which is
forcing cuts in government services and programs.

But
for two governors who have prided themselves on changing the status quo in
their respective states, it was old fashioned politics – money and power – that
played a critical role in getting the job done.

As
New York Times reporter Michael
Barbaro explained in his account of the strategy
behind Cuomo’s success with the same sex marriage bill, the New York Governor’s
work with “a group of super-rich
Republican donors”
helped deliver the votes needed to pass the measure. According to Barbaro, the GOP
donors “had the influence and
the money to insulate nervous senators from conservative backlash if they
supported the marriage measure” and ultimately provided $1 million to a lobbying
campaign in support of the bill.

In
New Jersey, an alliance between the Governor and powerbrokers from the opposing
political party also proved critical in getting pension and benefit reform
through the Legislature.

Republican
lawmakers voted overwhelmingly in favor of the bill, but since Democrats hold majorities
in both the state Senate and Assembly, the measure would not have passed
without support from a handful of Democrats. By and large, the Democrats who
supported the bill are closely aligned with Steve Adubato Sr., a powerful North
Jersey Democratic leader, and George Norcross, who wields substantial power and
influence in South Jersey Democratic circles. As The Record’s Charles Stile wrote in a column about the
pension bill, Christie has “carefully cultivated” Adubato and Norcross, turning
them into “de facto get-out-the-vote ward leaders for
the Republican governor's agenda.”

Additional
evidence of the unusual dynamics between the Republican governor and Democratic
powerbrokers was on display later in the week when the state Senate failed to
provide ample votes to block Christie’s proposal to transfer operation on New
Jersey Network (NJN) to WNET. Republicans sided with the Governor and voted
against blocking the plan, but again a few Democratic votes were needed, and
again they came from a familiar group of lawmakers. “On the public employee
benefits and public television votes this past week, just about all of the
Democratic defections can be linked to the Norcross and Adubato camps,” Salon news editor Steve Kornacki wrote after the NJN
vote took place.

The
whirlwind pace of politics, which last week produced historic action in New
York and New Jersey, is about to slow down for the summer. It will be an
opportune time for Andrew Cuomo and Chris Christie to revel in the success of
some major achievements in their relatively brief gubernatorial careers. But
one of the ironic side effects of their successes has been to make the
political bosses in their states even more powerful.

#
# #

Richard A. Lee is
Communications Director of the Hall
Institute. A former State House reporter and Deputy Communications
Director for the Governor, he also teaches courses in media, politics and
government at Rutgers University, where he is completing work on a Ph.D. in
media studies. Read more of Rich’s columns at richleeonline and follow him
on Twitter.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Originally slated for Jan 17th in remembrance of Martin Luther King the rally has been rescheduled for Sunday August 28th, 2011, the anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech. Despite the date change, the goals of the conference have remained the same, to bring that message of freedom and liberty into the inner city and urban areas. The event will still be in Trenton, New Jersey at the State House from 10am-5pm. This event will be Free, and open to the public.

In celebration of Dr. King's vision of a free and prosperous America for all, "Restoring Freedoms" is bringing diverse groups together in finding common ground, and return to the principles that have made America great. In the words of Dr. King, "we need not do anything new, just live up to what God has given to us on paper". The blueprint is there for all of us to see, in the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.

Please join us and listen to the following inspirational speakers as they speak to what freedom means to them, and how we begin a renaissance to insure America will always be that shining star on the hill, and be a beacon of light for justice and equality to those oppressed, for all the world to see. Louis R. Jasikoff

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

This past Monday, 47-year-old Lorenzo Charles died in a tour bus accident in Raleigh, NC. According to the associated press, Charles was driving
an Elite Coach bus on Interstate 40 when the accident occurred. He was
pronounced dead at the scene.

Charles was responsible for one of the most stunning comeback wins in NCAA
championship history. In 1983, his team was a significant underdog to
powerhouse Houston, and Charles hit the game-winning dunk after a teammate shot an air ball.click to read

Instead it only considers the $9.7 trillion ‘debt held by the
public’. That was cited by the CBO. What was not was the $4.6 trillion
of debt owed to the Medicare and Social Security trust funds.
Interest is owed to those programs similarly is not included.

These are real liabilities that the American people are expected to
honor, and do honor under CBO’s analysis. But because they are not
revealed until 2024 and 2036, when the trust funds are fully exhausted,
even the dire scenarios that are presented to the American people are
actually rosy.

Why would the CBO leave this out of their analysis? Ostensibly,
economists would counter that it’s just money owed to ourselves, and not
a share of debt held publicly. That, those obligations might be
repudiated. So they shouldn’t be counted until they come due.

In reality, it’s just an accounting gimmick that hides that allows
the government to understate the dire fiscal condition the Treasury
really is in. When the Medicare and Social Security trust funds are
exhausted in 2024 and 2036, respectively, the Treasury will be forced to
borrow more money publicly anyway to honor the obligations to those
programs.
Get full story here.

From all available reports, Hugo Chavez is in critical condition
in a hospital in Cuba. The Venezuelan communist dictator was taken to
Cuba several weeks ago for an emergency surgery regarding pelvic
swelling, which has led many to speculate that he is dealing with
prostate cancer.

In the irony of ironies, Hugo Chavez was faced with the decision to
have to leave his own nation, and the health care system that was
supposed to be an example for other nations, to receive care from
another questionable health care system in Cuba.

Chavez, a believer that the state should control all industry,
including medical services, could not receive the adequate treatment for
his life threatening condition in his own nation. This could be
because he does not trust any of the doctors in Venezuela with his life
threatening condition, or, that there are no doctors left in his
nation that are capable of undertaking such surgeries with good
outcomes.

To receive adequate care, Chavez had to head to fellow communist
nation Cuba, where such surgery could be administered. However, even in
Cuba, it appears that he is receiving sub-par health care. This should
be a “teachable” moment for all those who believe in centralized health
care.

In Venezuela, the right to health care is guaranteed in their
constitution. All citizens are given access to a “free” health care
system, as Venezuelan Analysis reports.
However, this system is terribly run, and hospitals are often
overcrowded with people not receiving adequate care. In fact, Cuba sends
doctors to Venezuela to help with the shortage that was created out of
centralizing the medical system. Even more, the Cuban doctors that are sent to Venezuela defect in large numbers — including somewhere in the neighborhood of 4,000 doctors alone in 2006!
Get full story here.

Private companies and hospital researchers are increasingly making strides toward developing an artificial pancreas,
supplanting insulin injections and pinpricks for patients with
diabetes. Such a system would mimic the functions of a healthy pancreas,
delivering insulin and monitoring blood sugar according to a computer’s
careful calculations.

Endocrinologists have been presenting new concepts at a meeting of
the American Diabetes Association in San Diego, and last week, U.S.
regulators released new draft guidelines for a new generation of
devices.
Researchers
at the Mayo Clinic are developing an artificial pancreas that accounts
for slight, low-intensity physical activities that can impact blood
sugar levels. The researchers are developing a closed-loop system that includes a glucose monitor, automatic insulin pump, activity
monitors that attach to the body and a central computer that uses an
insulin-delivery algorithm to determine how much of the hormone to
dispense.

And now comes another story of the absurd involving the
Transportation Security Administration, the folks who protect our
airports.

The News Herald reports
that a woman filed a complaint with the Department of Homeland Security
after her 95-year-old mother, who is suffering from leukemia and in a
wheelchair, was detained and searched and made to take off her adult
diaper during a search at Northwest Florida Regional Airport last
weekend.

Jean Weber of Destin, Fla. filed a complaint on behalf of her mother,
who was headed to Michigan to be with family members in the final
stages of leukemia, the paper reported.

Her mother, who was in a wheelchair, was asked to remove an adult diaper in order to complete a pat-down search.

“It’s something I couldn’t imagine happening on American soil,” Weber
said Friday, according to the paper. “Here is my mother, 95 years old,
105 pounds, barely able to stand, and then this.”

By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
More is coming out about the adventures of mobster James “Whitey’’ Bulger, who was captured last week after 16 years on the lam.

The Boston Globe reports that
during those 16 years he returned to Boston in disguise and “armed to
the teeth’’ several times “to take care of some unfinished business.’’
The paper cited government documents filed Monday.

The paper reported that Bulger, who is charged with 19 murders,
refused to say who he came to see or when, but former associates said
he returned at least twice during the first year on the lam.
Bulger also told FBI agents he also visited Las Vegas and Mexico,
and stashed money with people he had trusted, according to the Globe.

Prosecutors are arguing that Bulger’s lifestyle indicates that he can
afford to pay for his defense, the Globe reported. When authorities
busted him they found more than $800,000 stashed in his apartment.

As
the economy continues in its downward spiral and talks in Congress
about reducing spending have only amounted to political theater, the
subject of how the tax code treats energy has become a topic of
controversy. Specifically, should we subsidize, enforce mandates, or
give tax credits and deductions to industries like ethanol and natural
gas? Having a thriving energy market domestically is a good thing and
something the government should not hinder. Not only would decreasing
our dependence on foreign oil simplify our foreign policy, but it would
greatly enhance our anemic economy at home.

Of course, the
government should neither inhibit nor subsidize any particular type of
energy. While many people agree with that statement, there is much
confusion over the difference between government subsidies and tax
credits or deductions. The difference is night and day, yet so many
times they are all lumped together as evil government handouts. A
subsidy IS a government handout. It amounts to the government taking
money from the people and giving it to a favored interest. It is the
worst sort of market manipulation and it is something I can never
support. This kind of government mischief is anathema to the
Constitution and the principles of freedom and the free market.

By contrast, with tax credits and deductions, industries, business, and
individuals simply get to keep more of the money they have earned.
Ideally, the tax code should not be used for social engineering, but,
until we have true tax reform, I will always support tax credits and
deductions that keep more dollars in the private sector where they are
spent, saved, or invested. This means I will support tax credits and
deductions for energy producers, farmers, homeschoolers, family child
care expenditures, expenses of evacuees from disaster areas, and even
adoption expenses. I've almost never met a tax cut, deduction, or
credit I didn't like. Any measure that keeps money in the private
sector to spend, save or invest, rather than allowing the government to
waste or misallocate is a win for the economy.

Inequities in the tax code dealing with tax credits should be solved by giving all participants equal treatment. Removing

I oppose ethanol mandates because I do not think anyone should be
forced to use or buy ethanol. Ethanol mandates often serve as corporate
welfare for big agriculture ethanol producers. The marketplace should
decide whether or not to use ethanol, and producers of ethanol have to
discover if they can produce it at a price that makes good business
sense. No industry should be allowed to use legislation to create a
"market" for its products. The real reason ethanol mandates continue to
surface in federal legislation is that agribusiness continues to have
one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington.

Furthermore,
while I do not support providing federal grants to any industry, I do
support the tax credits contained in the NAT Gas Act, HR 1380. These
credits reduce taxes for the production or purchase of vehicles that run
on American-made natural gas. These credits are not subsidies. Of
course, we should repeal federal barriers to energy production and
reduce taxes on all forms of energy. Therefore, I have also introduced
the Affordable Gas Price Act HR 1102 which would remove governmental
barriers to offshore drilling, encourage private investment in new
refineries and suspend taxes on gasoline when the price at the pump
reaches a certain threshold. Lowering taxes to encourage the domestic
production of energy and getting government out of the way of the
American energy market is not a government giveaway; it is the way it
should be in a free country.source

French banks have reached an outline agreement to roll over holdings
of maturing Greek bonds as part of a wider European plan to avoid
sovereign default.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said in Paris on Monday that
the banks would be offered 30-year Greek bonds with a coupon equivalent
to the euro zone's lending rate to Greece, plus a premium based on the
financially troubled nation's future economic growth rate.

"We concluded that by stretching out the loans over 30 years, putting
[interest rates] at the level of European loans, plus a premium indexed
to future Greek growth, that would be a system that each country could
find attractive," Sarkozy said.

We have to protect ourselves from these terrorists, because everything changed after 9/11. This rationale is right up there with do it for the children.
It resonates. It plays in Peoria. It may not be sufficient for the
handful of people on the internet who read blawgs by criminal defense
lawyers, libertarians or the Tin Foil Hat Society, but it remains the
mantra of many regular folk who would prefer not to be an uninvited
guest to someone else's martyrdom party.

While they made off with a decent haul, the robbers were doubtless
disappointed that they couldn't locate the large stash of illicit
prescription drugs they had expected to find. They had the luxury of
tossing the home at leisure without worrying about being interrupted by
the police -- on account of the fact that they were the police.

It was only a matter of time before monkeys, like their hairless
primate counterparts, became the target of advertising. Laurie Santos, a
primatologist at Yale University who was included in PopSci’s Brilliant Ten in 2007, is partnering with advertising executives Keith Olwell and Elizabeth Kiehner to create an ad campaign aimed at brown capuchin monkeys. The team hopes to determine if the
presence of advertising will change a monkey’s preference between two
similar foods.

Santos’ monkeys have already demonstrated that they understand the
concept of money, and behave similarly to humans when making economic
decisions. The monkeys will have a choice between two brands of the
same food (perhaps two different colors of Jell-o), one of which will be
advertised by a billboard outside their enclosure.
But there will be no fancy slogans or slick pop culture references
here, which would be lost on the monkeys anyway. This experiment gets
down to what advertising is really all about: sex and power. One
version of the billboard shows a female monkey’s exposed genitals next
to the brand logo, and the other shows the alpha male capuchin next to
the logo.

After more than a year of strained relations,
Turkey has decided to restore military and intelligence collaboration
in the eastern Mediterranean with Israel as Ankara heads for a military
showdown with Syria,

Monday, June 27, 2011

One
of the side effects of the US hitting its debt ceiling in mid-May is
that while the components of its total debt have been shifting, with
total marketable debt slowly grinding higher, while intragovernmental
holdings (i.e., government retirement pension accruals) declining, the
total thing has been flat as a pancake at just $25 million below the
mandated ceiling. Since May 16 (or 57 working days now), total US debt
has been $14.345 billion and not a penny more. Yet the issue is that
with the US expected to have a roughly $1.5 trillion budget deficit in
the calendar 2011 year, the ongoing contraction in debt issuance is only
temporary. Basically when and if the debt ceiling is lifted, the
Treasury will not only have to issue as much debt as before, but it will
have to issue massively more in the short term to catch up to the
ongoing run rate, and also in order to prefund the same retirement
accounts it has been plundering for the past 6 months. So here's the
math. As the chart below shows, since May 16, the cumulative divergence
between where total debt is and where it should be is now a whopping
$265 billion. That's right: when the debt ceiling cap is finally lifted,
and it will be lifted, with republicans "kicking and screaming",
Geithner will suddenly find himself needing to plug a gap of over 2
months worth of accrued treasury issuance. Mathematically, this means
the Treasury will have to sell not the $100 billion or so in net debt
but well over double that in August and September. And this will happen
at a time when there is no QE2 to soak up the excess slack. Read Full Story

The
Venezuelan government rejected
reports that President Hugo Chavez is in critical condition following
emergency surgery in Cuba, insisting the firebrand leftist leader was
"recovering well."

Chavez's government said he had an operation for a pelvic abscess on
June 10 and continues to mend.
"He is recovering," Information Minister Andres Izarra told AFP in
the wake of a report by Miami's El Nuevo Herald citing
unnamed US intelligence sources as saying the 56-year-old "is in
critical condition - not on the brink of death, but critical indeed."

Republican presidential hopeful Newt
Gingrich has joined other conservatives in using high
unemployment rates among African-Americans as a bid against President
Obama, saying that the president has performed so poorly that blacks
will vote Republican in 2012.
"No administration in modern times has failed younger blacks more than
the Obama administration," said Gingrich during the keynote speech at
the Maryland GOP's annual Red, White & Blue banquet in Baltimore.

Gingrich cited high unemployment rates among African-American teenagers
and said that the black vote is ripe for the picking.

"Think of the social catastrophe of 41% of a community not being able to
find a job. But we have to have the courage to walk into that
neighborhood, to talk to that preacher, to visit that small business, to
talk to that mother. And we have to have a convincing case that we
actually know how to create jobs," he said, as reported on talkingpointsmemo.com.
"The morning they believe that, you're going to see margins in percents
you never dreamed of decide there's a better future," Gingrich said.
"It takes courage, it takes hard work, it takes discipline and it's
doable."

Gingrich stepped in it earlier by calling Obama "the food stamp
president," but said that if elected he would be a "paycheck president."
Gingrich, a former Speaker of the House, invoked the phrase again
during Thursday's speech, adding a bit of nuance, suggesting that blacks
might have a come-to-Jesus moment this election and distance themselves
from the president.

"I will bet you there is not a single precinct in this state in which
the majority will pick for their children food stamps over paychecks,"
he said.

Gingrich's remarks ring similar to those of Rep.
Michele Bachmann, who is also running for the Republican
presidential nomination and told a group at the Republican Leadership
Conference in New Orleans last week that Obama "has failed the
African-American community" for not doing more to bolster employment
rates.

Gingrich has a long history of making what some have seen as
patronizing, bigoted or outright racists remarks about minorities, women
and the LGBT communities.

In August Gingrich compared the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero
to Nazis erecting a sign near the Holocaust Museum or a Japanese
memorial near Pearl Harbor.

In 2007 he said that bilingual education teaches "the language of living
in a ghetto."

And in 1995 he said that women were not fit for front line combat in the
trenches because "they get infections."

One of the more offensive of Gingrich's comments came in a 1994
interview with The New York Times, in which he proposed that the
government should abandon giving poor young mothers welfare and instead
start building more orphanages.

And during a radio show earlier this week with host Laura Ingraham,
Gingrich criticized First Lady Michelle Obama's trip to Africa, again
invoking black unemployment:

"Well you know when you had 45% African-American teenage unemployment in
January in the United States, it would have been nice for the president
to have focused on bringing that hope and optimism to young Americans
as well as young Africans."

By Bill
Wilson
It is time for congressional Republican leaders, including House
Speaker John Boehner, to play hardball on the debt ceiling.

The only way House Republicans’ leverage on the debt ceiling will
work is if they’re willing to not increase the debt ceiling. Because,
if they are unwilling to go that far, they will achieve exactly zero
concessions in exchange for their votes.

That is why Americans for Limited Government is supporting Senator
Jim DeMint and House Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan’s
“Cut, Cap, and Balance” Pledge. All members of Congress should be
taking this pledge.

Basically, there should be no increase in the nation’s $14.294
trillion borrowing limit unless there are hundreds of billions of
immediate spending cuts, statutory spending caps of no more than 18
percent of the Gross Domestic Product, and a balanced budget amendment
with strong tax and spending limitations.

Unless all of that is done, the American people will have no
assurance that the debt ceiling will not just need to be increased
again, again, and again in the future.
Get full story here.

By Rick
Manning
The past six months have seen public employee unions protesting
around the nation attempting to resist attempts by elected
representatives to rein in the massive overspending of their
predecessors.

Scenes from Wisconsin
to Indiana to even California
have found those who have been hired by taxpayers to do the
government’s business taking to the streets to keep the power, money
and pensions that elected officials who they helped elect granted them.

In Wisconsin, the public employee unions even attempted to influence
a judicial election in a brazen attempt to overturn the decisions
by duly elected officials.

Now, the teachers
union in Florida is suing the state over a change that was made in
the law which would require their members to pay 3 percent out of
their paychecks toward their retirement fund, instead of having that
money provided by the taxpayers.

While I can feel some sympathy toward a public employee who entered
this past year with one set of economic assumptions and had those
assumptions turned on their head. That is exactly what the rest of
America has been feeling for the past three years, largely due to
government overspending, keeping these very public employees in the high
style that they’ve become accustomed.
Get full story here.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

By Robert Romano
The Obama Administration must be laboring under the delusion that the $14.3 trillion debt can somehow be paid for with tax increases.

It cannot. And it would a foolish gambit to try.
That is why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl are to be commended for walking out of the Biden-led White House debt ceiling talks.

“As it stands, the Democrats continue to insist that any deal must include tax increases,” said Cantor on the matter. “There is not support in the House for a tax increase, and I don’t believe now is the time to raise taxes in light of our current economic situation. Regardless of the progress that has been made, the tax issue must be resolved before discussions can continue.”

Lest there was any confusion at the White House, House Speaker John Boehner reminded the Obama Administration that “since the beginning, the Majority Leader and myself, along with Sen. McConnell and Sen. Kyl have been clear: tax hikes are off the table.”

As they should be. After all, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan, we don’t have a $14.3 trillion debt because we have not taxed enough, we have a $14.3 trillion debt because we spend too much.
Barack Obama is trying to get Republicans to accept the premise that somehow the deficit has grown on account of tax cuts. It has not.

In 2007, the total budget was just $2.728 trillion with only a $160.7 billion deficit. Now, in 2011, according to the Office of Management and Budget, the budget will be $3.771 trillion with a $1.597 trillion deficit. That’s a whopping 893 percent increase in the deficit in just four years. How can this be, when tax rates are the same?
Get full story here.

By Adam Bitely
A new website has popped up in the last week that seeks to organize the workers of Walmart. In a covert effort launched by the United Food and Commercial Works (UFCW), the union has launched a website called OurWalmart.org which seeks to sign up Walmart employees to be part of an effort to organize inside of the giant retail chain.

OurWalmart.org is running a deceptive operation in the fact that they attempt to hide their affiliation with the UFCW. According to the website, “Organization United for Respect at Walmart, an independent, not-for-profit organization for hourly Associates. Our organization is not affiliated with Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.” But the site does not mention that it is paid for by the UFCW.

Further, when one does a domain “who is” search, the domain is registered out of the UFCW’s Washington, DC operation at 1775 K Street NW.

The New York Times ran a story last week on this covert operation, and cited that UFCW is not disclosing how much they are paying for the website, writing that “the union will not say how much” they are spending on this effort.

According to Nathan Mehrens who helped oversee labor union financial reporting at the U.S. Department of Labor, “The union would have to disclose any disbursement of money in excess of $5,000, as well as the purpose the money went towards, on their form LM-2. In this case, if they paid a web developer for the construction of a website, the purpose may never come to light.”

Before the public can find out what the UFCW is doing to destroy one of the largest employers in the country, it will all come down to the amount of money that they are spending on this effort.
Get full story here.

By Kevin Mooney
Have you or your business been on the receiving end of mistreatment from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)? If so, you could have a job in a new Herman Cain Administration. The presidential candidate said in an interview that he would like to set up a regulatory reduction commission that includes victims of the renegade government agency. Cain was among several candidates who addressed the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans last week.

"Whenever science does not back up a regulation, it's gone, that's the idea," he said. "If you have been abused by the EPA you are a candidate for this commission. We need to stand up average Americans and job creators and we need to get government back in check."

Cain’s comments were prompted by the job killing regulations and lawsuits filed by the EPA related to Obama’s climate change agenda.

Recently the EPA announced that they were going to impose unrealistic timelines for the implementation of climate change rules that American Electric Power Chairman Michael G. Morris denounced saying, “We will have to prematurely shut down nearly 25 percent of our current coal-fueled generating capacity, cut hundreds of good power plant jobs, and invest billions of dollars in capital to retire, retrofit and replace coal-fueled power plants. The sudden increase in electricity rates and impacts on state economies will be significant at a time when people and states are still struggling.”

Cain also said he would put permits for oil drilling on "booster rockets" to help revive the Gulf coast economy. Cain is the former chairman and CEO of Godfather's Pizza.
Get full story here.

Friday, June 24, 2011

I never had a chance to meet Clarence Clemons while I was a music critic for The Aquarian Weekly in the early 1980s, but the time I spent covering rock’n’roll in New Jersey coincided with the few years that Clarence owned a club in Red Bank called Big Man’s West.

I spent several memorable nights at the club. I saw Clarence perform with his own band, the Red Bank Rockers; I was in the audience when Bruce Springsteen jumped onstage for an impromptu set with Dave Edmonds, and I was there with a small group of about 25 hearty souls who braved bad weather because we were told that night’s performer – a young man from Sayreville named John Bongiovi – might someday make it big.

Although my career took a different path after I left the world of music journalism, I remained a fan of Springsteen and the E Street Band. Like so many others, I was saddened by the news of Clemons’ passing, but at the same time, it has been comforting and somewhat inspiring to hear the words of those who knew him well – as well as those who simply were his fans – as they expressed their love and fondness for the Big Man.

These are not sentiments I hear often in my current occupation, where the subjects of my writing are government, politics and the media.

But that’s quite understandable. After all, who is more likely to generate affection from the public? A man who has been a popular entertainer for some four decades or a politician who casts votes on taxes, program cuts, and other volatile issues?

Perhaps, this explains the success of some of today’s most popular politicians. Individuals such as Sarah Palin and Chris Christie may not consider themselves entertainers, but they clearly are entertaining. In the 21st Century, success in politics has become as much about personality as it is about one’s ability to govern. “In essence, the candidate is the message,” Republican strategist Karl Rove said about the Palin team’s approach in a New York magazine article.

Personality tells us a lot about a person, but it doesn’t necessarily indicate how effectively one performs his or her job – whether that job is running a government or playing the saxophone. In Clemons’ case, he had both the talent and the personality. With image often overshadowing substance in campaigns and elections, let’s hope that we can find leaders whose personalities and talents blend as smoothly as the notes that emanated from the Big Man’s tenor saxophone for so many years.

# # #

Richard A. Lee is Communications Director of the Hall Institute. A former State House reporter and Deputy Communications Director for the Governor, he also teaches courses in media, politics and government at Rutgers University, where he is completing work on a Ph.D. in media studies. Read more of Rich’s columns at richleeonline and follow him on Twitter.

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Lasers that can take down an aircraft or zap a boat in roiling seas are certainly the weapons of the future. But smaller lasers that disrupt rather than destroy could be an even simpler defense system.
Raytheon, which built a laser that cooked a UAV in flight last year, is one of several defense firms working on lasers that take a somewhat more passive approach, such as disabling a missile’s guidance system to prevent it from connecting with its target. Raytheon is developing common infrared countermeasures (CIRCM) systems to be installed on Army and Navy helicopters, and large-aircraft infrared countermeasures systems for the Air Force.
The Quiet Eyes Laser Turret Assembly directs a quantum cascade laser to disable missiles, the company said. It is designed to be installed on any type of airplane, and recently passed a test at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in a C-130 Hercules.
The company is also using off-the-shelf, lightweight fiber lasers that can go on any helicopter, which would solve the weight problem that has plagued airborne laser systems. Previous directional infrared countermeasures were deemed too heavy for any helicopter except the CH-47 Chinook, but Raytheon’s new generation is designed to fit helicopters down to the size of the Bell AH-1Z Cobra, according to the company. Raytheon unveiled its technology at the Paris Air Show today.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost the residents of Los Angeles over $1.8 billion this year. That's the amount of tax dollars that Los Angeles has sent to the federal government and will be spent on these two wars, according to calculations by the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group. New Yorkers will shell out $5.7 billion to pay for U.S. troops, weapons, and supplies in these two countries. The cost to Atlanta taxpayers is over $203 million; Philadelphians will pay $612 million; in Milwaukee, the price tag is $221 million. The taxpayers of Boise, Idaho -- a city with 205, 707 people -- will spend $75 million in these two war zones this year.
This week, the nation's mayors, desperate for dollars to keep their cities afloat, demanded: we want our money back! At its annual conference in Baltimore, the U.S. Conference of Mayors passed a resolution calling for an end to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, saying that the money could be put to better use at home. The resolution calls on the president and Congress to "bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy and reduce the federal debt."

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